FBI Raids Home of Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh; Maryland Governor Calls On her to Resign ‘for the Good of the City’

April 25, 2019

FILE – In this Dec. 6, 2016 file photo, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh delivers an address during her inauguration ceremony inside the War Memorial Building in Baltimore. Maryland’s chief accountant is calling for Pugh to step down, calling the latest revelations about lucrative deals to sell her self-published children’s books “brazen, cartoonish corruption.” In a Monday, April 1, 2019 tweet, Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot wrote: “The Mayor has to resign — now.” His comments came on the same day that Kaiser Permanente disclosed that it paid Pugh’s limited liability company about $114,000 for roughly 20,000 copies of her “Healthy Holly” children’s books. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan called on Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh to resign after FBI and IRS agents raided two of her homes and City Hall in a scandal over the sale of her “Healthy Holly” children’s books.

“Mayor Pugh has lost the public trust,” Hogan, a Republican, said in a statement. “She is clearly not fit to lead. For the good of the city, Mayor Pugh must resign.”

Pugh, a Democrat, went on indefinite paid leave earlier this month for what her office said were health issues.

Five of her staffers are also on paid leave.

The probe began after Hogan, responding to newspaper reports, called on the office of the state prosecutor to begin a criminal investigation into the allegations of wrongdoing that he called “deeply disturbing.”